One is one ... or is it?

One bag of apples, one apple, one slice of apple -- which of these is one unit? Explore the basic unit of math (explained by a trip to the grocery store!) and discover the many meanings of one.

Lesson by Christopher Danielson, animation by TED-Ed.

[avanicole]

I apply this on Halloween. There is a bowl of candy out, with a sign that says "please take one" I take one bowl full of candy.

[akashp]

"One is one ... or is it?"
*VSAUCE MUSIC INTENSIFIES*

[dekippiesip]

In pure mathematics 1 is just 1, plain and simple. If you apply it to the physical world, you need to specify what you mean by 1.

[SachinVerma-hthp]

1 is








Lesson by
Christopher Danielson

Narration by
Christopher Danielson

Animation by
TED-Ed Team

[amad]

One is one ... or is it?

*Vsauce theme song

[jayalessandrafreeman]

As someone trying to teach 4th, 5th and 6th grade students the idea of place value, this is AMAZING. As adults we take it for granted that the 1 in 10 represents one lot of ten, however to young children, this can be an extremely challenging concept to come to terms with.

[matthewmorris]

Why'd you gotta go and blow my brain up like that?

[calum]

I get what this video is trying to say, but numbers themseleves dont have a fixed value. For example, there is no "2", but you can have 2 things. You cant split 1, for say, you can only split the thing that there is 1 of.

If you cut 1 pizza into 12 slices, you have 12 new bits of 1 slice. The "1" itself only has value when applied to something.

So, really, 1 is 1, it just depends on what you apply the 1 to.

[asdasdasdora]

You might had a difficult childhood. Having George R. R. Martin as a math-teacher, can easily lead to catastrophies.

[sdjlbfjsddfh]

One is or IS IT?!

Vsauce music starts playing

[rieandrique]

I love how it ended with just a "1 is..." then END. :O <3

[mrsCrab]

The answer is donut.
The answer is always donut.

[slavsquatsuperstar]

I thought that it would have gotten more philosophical, but this was still mind blowing.

[jebc]

I like how something simple becomes complex, when you think deeply.

[QuackersMcCrackers]

Well, I think this video has one major flaw to it, to be honest.

He forgot to mention what even makes it possible to group things into a unit in the first place, by assigning a variable name, to a group of x items, whatever x may be (say, penguins). We could say that we have 8 Toaster pastries, grouped as 1 pack, 4 packs which form a box. Though, it's easier to say that 8t=1p, and that 4p=1b. From here, we can also say that, 1b = 32t.

When we are in base 10, sure, we package 10 one's to form this number 10, but we also do that with literally every single number from 2 to infinity, so the statement that 10 is just 10 one's packed is indeed true, though does not hold as much significance as he may of thought.

The variable name, is then, what we call some unit, x (like penguins). The true value lies in variables, that's when we well and truly begin to create/name our own units.

[boxwithoutatop]

The ken doll looked like a younger Donald trump.

[DistrarSubvoyikar]

This perfectly explains the difference between the double bar equal sign and the triple bar equal sign. The double bar equal sign only checks if two quantities have the same amount, whereas the triple bar equal sign also requires that they be of the same type.

[quesero]

i want my 4 minutes back, i got robbed !

[emigjoka]

I’m really living for the fact that this video has 1.1 Million views 😂

[arber.shabani]

1≠1 <---- this is wrong. " 1 is always 1."
The narrator in the video talks about the pizza and slices. When you talk about the slices and pizza you can't say 1 pizza equals 1 slice. It should be represented with letters. ex/ x=pizza then 1x is 1 pizza, y=slice then 1y is 1 slice, "1x≠1y" is 1 pizza can't equal 1 slice, and not 1≠1. That is why letters are included on equations, because they represent an unknown quantity.